his residing at a distance, shews that Callistus was already thought to be no ordinary man. He must have resided at Antium for a long time; for Zephyrinus, who did not succeed Victor till A.D. 202, recalled him. The new bishop "gave him the control of the clergy, and set him over the cemetery" (Phil. p. 288). This suggests that Callistus had been ordained at Antium; and the words "set him over the cemetery" (εἰς τὸ κοιμητήριον κατέστησεν have a special interest; for one of the largest catacombs in Rome is known as the Coemeterium Sti. Calixti. That this should have been intrusted to the same man to whom also was given the control of the clergy proves what a high value was set upon this first public burial-place of the Christians in Rome. Thirteen out of the next eighteen popes are said to have been buried here; and the names of seven of the thirteen (Callistus himself being one of the exceptions) have been identified from old inscriptions found in one crypt of this cemetery.
Now (A.D. 202) for the first time Callistus became a power in the Roman church. To Hippolytus, who held a double position in that church [ Hippolytus ], he became especially obnoxious. Being set over the Roman clergy, he was over Hippolytus, who was the presbyter of one of the Roman cardines or churches; but as a presbyter himself, he was inferior ecclesiastically to one who was also the bp. of Portus. Hippolytus claims to have detected Callistus's double-dealing from the first; but tells us that Callistus, aspiring to be bp. of Rome himself, would break openly with neither party. The question which now divided the church was that of the Monarchia, or how to reconcile the sovereignty of the Father with the Godhead of the Son. Callistus, who had obtained a complete ascendancy over the mind of Zephyrinus, according to Hippolytus an ignorant and venal man, took care to use language now agreeing with the Sabellians, now with Hippolytus. But he personally sided with Sabellius, called Hippolytus a Ditheist, and persuaded Sabellius, who might otherwise have gone right, to coalesce with the Monarchians. His motive, says Hippolytus, was that there might be two parties in the church which he could play off against each other, continuing on friendly terms with both (Phil. p. 289).
We find from Tertullian that Zephyrinus began, no doubt under Callistus's influence, the relaxation of discipline which he himself afterwards carried further when he became bishop. Under Zephyrinus the practice first obtained of allowing adulterers to be readmitted after public penance (de Pudicitiâ, i. 21; Döllinger, pp. 126‒130). Zephyrinus died in A.D. 218, and Callistus was elected bishop instead; and Hippolytus does not scruple to avow that by this act the Roman church had formally committed itself to heresy. He regards his own as the orthodox church, in opposition to what he henceforth considers as only being the Callistian sect (Phil. pp. 289, 292). Yet the first act apparently of Callistus as bishop was towards conciliating his rival. He threw off, perhaps actually excommunicated (ἀπέωσε), Sabellius. But he only did this, says Hippolytus, to proclaim a heresy quite as deadly as the other. If he is to be believed, he is right in thus characterizing it. The Father and the Son, Callistianism said, were one; together they made the Spirit, which Spirit took flesh in the womb of the Virgin. Callistus, says Hippolytus indignantly, is as Patripassian as Sabellius, for he makes the Father suffer with the Son, if not as the Son (ib. pp. 289‒330).
Hippolytus brings against him several other grave accusations of further relaxing the bonds of church discipline (ib. pp. 290, 291)—e.g. (1) He relaxed the terms of readmission into the church: accounting no sin so deadly as to be incapable of readmission, and not exacting penance as a necessary preliminary. (2) He relaxed the terms of admission into orders, ordaining even those who had been twice or thrice married; and permitting men already ordained to marry freely. (3) He also relaxed the marriage laws of the church, thereby bringing them into conflict with those of the state; and Hippolytus says that a general immorality was the consequence. Döllinger, however, pertinently observes that Hippolytus does not even hint a charge of personal immorality against Callistus (Döllinger, Hippolytus und Kallistus, p. 195). (4) He allowed second baptisms, which perhaps means that a repetition of baptism was substituted for the penance which had been necessary at the readmission of grievous sinners into the church. This is the only accusation which Döllinger meets with a distinct contradiction, on the ground that no such practice was known in the later Roman church (p. 189). Yet it surely is not as inconceivable as it seemed to him that later bishops of Rome might have reversed the acts of their predecessor.
Callistus is said to have died in A.D. 223 (Eus. H. E. vi. 20). Tradition tells us that he was scourged in a popular rising, thrown out of a window of his house in Trastevere, and flung into a well. This would account for no epitaph being found to Callistus in the papal crypt of his own cemetery in the catacombs. E. Rolffs, in Texte und Untersuch. (1893), xi. 3; P. Battifol, Le Décret de Callist. in Etudes d’Hist. et de Théol. (Paris, 1902), pp. 69 seq.
Caprasius (2), St., presbyter at Lérins (l’Isle de St. Honorat). Having a great desire to become a hermit, he distributed his goods to the poor and with St. Honoratus ultimately fixed on the isle of Lérins, described as a frightful desert where nothing was to be seen but serpents and other venomous creatures. There Honoratus built a monastery, into which he received many monks from the neighbouring countries. It was under the discipline of Caprasius and Honoratus, who are said to have made it the home of saints. Hilarius describes their new monastery as being distinguished for chastity, faith, wisdom, justice, truth. They also built in the island a church, of which Honoratus became minister. Caprasius died c. 430, and is commemorated on June 1. (Acta Sanctorum, Jun. 1, p. 77; Hilar. Arelat. de Vita S. Honorati, cap. ii. Patr. Lat. l. p. 1255; Eucherius Lugd. de Laud. Eremi, 42, Patr. Lat. l. p. 711; Sidonius Apoll. Carm. § 384, Patr. Lat. lviii. p. 721; Ceillier, Hist. des Auteurs Sacrés et Ecclés. t. viii. p. 439.)
